The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #49824   Message #4114940
Posted By: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
31-Jul-21 - 12:42 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: Brown Skin Girl / Brown Skinned Girl
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Brown Skin Girl / Brown Skinned Girl
Rule 34 is as old as sex.

Posted Belafonte's take on clean-ups in another thread some years ago:

...although I admire how clever and how interesting calypsonians can be in the songs they write and sing, I also find that most of those lyrics are not in the best interests of black people, because their songs are always filled with the need to make Europeans laugh at us. The glorify and dig deep into promiscuity, they go into genitalia…. I'd rather sing to the honor and glory of the region, and the beauty and dignity of our women….

...calypsonians here and there disparaged me. But already, my versions, popular as they were, were wending their way back into the Caribbean culture. Eventually, all those very same calypsonians would be singing their songs my way! And the different version they'd sung before would be forgotten.

Belafonte, My Song: A Memoir (New York: Knopf, 2011, p.164-5)

"Calypso" is union music from Trinidad. There are rules. Everything else is just a commerical genre label. The only rule is what sells and nothing lasts forever... even Harry Belafonte.